What a dangerous demagogue Michael Gove is. He gave a performance worthy of Sir Laurence Olivier playing Wimpole of the Bailey in the Commons yesterday. He starred in the Withdrawal Agreement debate, strutting up and down in front of the despatch box displaying his credentials (if you'll excuse the expression) for Tory party leadership. He reminded me of Tony Blair and his ability to 'sell' a bad idea with nothing but enthusiasm. Anybody neutral listening to him would be convinced that the WA was the best agreement ever negotiated by anybody since the dawn of history.
Let us remember that it was Michael Gove who told us in April 2016 during the referendum campaign (HERE) that, “The day after we vote to leave, we hold all the cards and we can choose the path we want.” Now he talks about the 'grim and inescapable' facts.
But give him credit, he made a good fist of it yesterday I must admit. However, the SNP punched some serious holes in his arguments.
For example, Gove claimed that by opposing the Withdrawal Agreement "the Scottish Government want to stand in the way of 5,000 new jobs being created? [in the fishing industry]". (HERE Col 576). It all sounded very positive until he took an intervention from Alan Brown:
Alan Brown
"The Secretary of State spoke of cherry-picking, but he cherry-picks his own statistics when he talks about 5,000 possible new fishing jobs. The SNP was always opposed to the common fisheries policy and argued against it for many years. When it comes to cherry-picking, what does the Secretary of State say about the 80,000 post-Brexit job losses predicted by the Fraser of Allander Institute? What is he doing to address that?"
But give him credit, he made a good fist of it yesterday I must admit. However, the SNP punched some serious holes in his arguments.
For example, Gove claimed that by opposing the Withdrawal Agreement "the Scottish Government want to stand in the way of 5,000 new jobs being created? [in the fishing industry]". (HERE Col 576). It all sounded very positive until he took an intervention from Alan Brown:
Alan Brown
"The Secretary of State spoke of cherry-picking, but he cherry-picks his own statistics when he talks about 5,000 possible new fishing jobs. The SNP was always opposed to the common fisheries policy and argued against it for many years. When it comes to cherry-picking, what does the Secretary of State say about the 80,000 post-Brexit job losses predicted by the Fraser of Allander Institute? What is he doing to address that?"
To which Gove replied, totally ignoring the job losses, "It is the case that, if the Scottish National party votes for the deal,
we shall be able to secure jobs in Scotland and across the United
Kingdom, and also to secure those 5,000 additional jobs"
I thought this little exchange summed Gove up. He picks up on the positive (5000 new fishing jobs) but ignores the much larger and more unpleasant negative (losing 80,000 other jobs). This is like someone offering you £5 while picking your wallet containing £80 out of your pocket.
This is a stark reminder of the painful trade offs to come. You can create new fishing jobs or jobs in the Whisky industry but only at the expense of work in other sectors like chemicals for example. It is unlikely to be a balanced exchange and perhaps a redundant employee at one of the Grangemouth chemical plants may not be entirely happy to be one of the sixteen men applying for every job on a fishing trawler or gutting cod in Aberdeen. To Gove of course this is a mere detail in the Brexit vision.
But make no mistake, Gove was impressive in his peroration and his argument for supporting the deal will have had an impact on some members.
Essentially, his position is this: the deal is actually terrible but there isn't going to be a better one and can I distract you with a few tiny positives things, which I will talk about as if they are major concessions from the EU, while I slip the whole thing past you. It was masterly prestidigitation.
Nobody asked him where all the cards went.
